


Once We Were

by swegspeare



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/F, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Pining, Post-Break Up, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Trans Warden, the warden is Not Over His Ex, the warden is a hot mess express ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 03:48:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9474056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swegspeare/pseuds/swegspeare
Summary: Not all romances are meant to be, and not all heroes are good ones. Some heroes, for example, take back up the mantle just to track down their ex and beat the shit out of them fair and square.(Or: the Warden arrives at Skyhold after years of being a broody hobo, and everyone is a little terrified)





	

_chapter one: that little bitch destiny_

_i._

  Years later, when the Inquisition first began to cut its bloody swath through Thedas, she knew better than to jump into the fray. It would have lent it credence, to that bloated army of the duped and manipulated, marching to all corners of everything sundry, any nation landlocked and malleable. It was powerful, she heard. From a cult to a force with the might to coerce entire nations. Lead by one branded by a god herself.

  It was powerful, she heard, only at first, and after that she couldn’t escape the soldiers that creeped across Thedas like an insidious disease, seeping into the bones and settling there. Like ticks. Couldn’t be shaken off. She fled up the Heartlands, across the Coastlands, but they were there, always there; blazing encampments lighting up the forest with a hostile many-toothed too-wide grin, that eye hanging overhead like a curse. _The world is ending,_ it taunted, _the world is ending again, and who are you to change that?_ Her chest felt as if rent in two and she fled across the Waking Sea.

  She was past the Vimmarks, mud patterning her breeches, the embrace of an old friend, the heavy-footed weary-eyed tattered travel – when it arrived.

  The streets of Markham had been at one point cobblestone and were little more than rounded outcroppings of stone now. It reminded her of home. She wanted to flee that wretched place, too, untouched as it was, but a rattling cough had nestled itself deep in her lungs, and her wineskin had run dry.

  She set out for the road anyway.

 

_ii._

_You’ve certainly given me a troublesome time in finding you, which I suppose was your intention. Perhaps do not leave so many bodies in your wake next time._

_I will not beg you to join the Inquisition, nor do I expect you to do it solely for me. I’m extending a courtesy – a warrior of your caliber would have a place within our ranks. Even a certain Crow has been helping us._

_I suspect you heard what happened to Haven. It is funny how the Maker works his will._

_I hope to see your face once again, old friend._

_L._

  Not many paid attention at first. Another knife-ear to pass through. Once she pushed back the sun-bleached cowl, pulled against the scabbard so that she might sit, more than a few gazes were leveled.

  If he were here, he’d already have three exits marked out, half a dozen manners in which the meandering sodden tavern patrons could be dispatched. If he were here, maybe she'd finally be able to strange him to death.

  The messenger entered, laid the abominable letter before her, and left.

  A barmaid, fair-haired and soft, was speaking. “You look hungry, messere. We’ve got some fine shepherd’s pie tonight.”

_Even a certain Crow._

  “Or some ale, perhaps?”

_A certain Crow._

  She stared ahead, unsure of what to do. “A skin of water.”

  The barmaid pressed her lips together apologetically. “We’ve got none of that at the moment. Some ale instead, maybe?”

  She repeated it emptily. “You’re out of water.”

  “A ram drowned in the cistern few days ago, everyone drinking it’s been getting sick.”

  “Then a cup of milk.” Why would they want _him_? What would he possibly have to offer a leviathan like the Inquisition? They wouldn’t be sparing their coffers, certainly.

_Free assassinations are a luxury available only to the most beautiful, terrifying elf in all of Thedas, of course. Even statuesque specimens like myself must eat._

  “We’ve only got wine, mead and ale, messere.”

  The Nightengale should know better.

  “What are _you_ serving?” she asked, abruptly inviting. A kind of butchering of what he’d taught her. _Curve the lips, raise the eyebrows – if it must be obvious, make it endearingly so._

  The barmaid was coyly playing dumb, and blinked alluringly. “What do you mean?”

  She placed the letter into the flames, watched it. The Inquisition, the Crow, none of it meant anything now. She stood and placed her finger under the barmaid’s chin. “I mean that I’d like _only_ whatever you’d like to give me.”

  The barmaid smiled and pulled her into a back room.

  The Warden tried to smile back.

 

_iii._

  Alistair was very earnestly dumbfounded. “What do you mean?”

  The Warden chuffed, looking for a moment at those brown feeling eyes before bending to retrieve Alistair’s sword from where it had skittered when she disarmed him. She was repressing a smirk. “I mean what I said.”

  “It’s true,” Leliana provided helpfully, folding her damp clothes over a makeshift clothesline, which happened to double as a tree branch. “I watched her do it, entirely down to the stem.”

  He looked up in awe, leaning against the weapon obligingly. “Maker, so that’s why those children were so terrified. I thought it was me, all this time.”

  The Warden leaned against the oak trunk and offered her half-eaten apple to Leliana. “Not out of the question.”

  “Har-har. Yes, I’m so intimidating compared to the woman that saved their town from the undead and then, covered head to toe in blood,  _ate_ the flower she was given as a heartfelt gift.” He sheathed his sword, a lopsided, disbelieving smile slapped across his dark skin. “I don’t even want to ask why.” Shaking his head, he stopped in his tracks to cup his hands in front of him, sticking his lower lip out as he indicated the apple in the Warden’s hand.

  She looked him up and down. “Nah,” she said flatly, indulging another juicy bite as Alistair watched on in pain, “I don’t share with shems.”

  “You did offer it to me,” Leliana pointed out, helpful once again.

  “And you try to steal my stew all the time,” Alistair said matter-of-factly, and raised his eyebrows.

  “Although I can perhaps see why one wouldn’t want to give him a bite,” Leliana rejoindered with a glint in her eye. “He is awfully disheveled."

  The Warden boredly took another bite of her apple, chewing loudly. "Really puts the  _bastard_ in  _royal bastard._ "

  Alistair threw his hands up. “Fine, fine, it’s ‘make fun of Alistair’ time, I get it.” He sniffed in mock-heartbreak. “You are all very mean people.”

  The Warden stood upright fully, cracking her knuckles and ignoring the apple commentary. She tossed the remainder over her shoulder. “I’m going to talk to the assassin.”

  “He was still unconscious when I last checked,” Leliana said, brushing her hands against each other as she finished her laundry. “You did hit him very hard.”

  Alistair huffed, crossing his arms. “Am I the only one bothered by the fact that we have an assassin _in the camp_? That seems like a lot bigger deal than you two are making of it.”

  The two women glanced at each other. “He’s tied up,” the Warden said, in an explanatory tone.

  There was a beat of silence. Alistair seemed to be expecting more, but that’s pretty much all she had to say at the moment. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she obliged him nonetheless. “I’ll probably kill him anyway.”

  Leliana nodded her head then, and the Warden glanced at her in quizzical appreciation. Despite her efforts, she and Leliana never could seem to see eye-to-eye on anything; the Orlesian liked being kind and talkative and merciful and eating fancy little foods and discussing ornate shoes. The Warden liked hitting things with a sword and occasionally making fun of other people. This really was breaking new ground. “Allowing a man to explain himself is only just, Alistair,” Leliana said earnestly, with the big-eyed, naive mien that was so very attractive. “Sticking a sword through his skull while he was begging for his life would hardly have been fair.”

The other Grey Warden cocked his head in askance. “It wasn’t _begging_ so much as asking politely while he waggled his eyebrows at you two.”

“No,” the Warden said, sheathing her sword. They looked at her. She shrugged. “He was waggling his eyebrows at you, too.” Turned away, picking a piece of apple from between her teeth. "Your opinion is highly valued, Alistair. Never forget that."

 

* * *

 

  She entered the tent, suppressing a yawn behind the back of her hand as the flap fell closed behind her. The setting sun, hidden by now behind an outcropping of dark thick-leaved trees, only provided for the palest vestige of light to pierce the thick cloth of the tent. Another yawn, fully realized this time, as she set about lighting a small copse of candles to illuminate the typically bizarre scene.

  The assassin was still out cold, it seemed, chin resting against his chest, which rose and fell gently. So he was alive, too. She grimaced. That was good, too, maybe. He hadn’t seemed too malicious when he was conscious, before she brought the butt of her sword down against his head, so his still being alive was probably for the best.

  She fondly glanced at the pommel rising above her right shoulder. Before that he’d also been attempting to kill her, which was pretty malicious, so the whole thing was a toss-up. She didn’t like toss-ups, and she didn’t like when those around her saw it fit to chime in whenever an opinion happened to pop into their head. _We should kill the assassin, he tried to kill you, of course we kill him_. Leliana was a good person and didn’t want to kill him out of principle. Still, it was eerie to hear Alistair, Morrigan, and Sten all be in agreement about something. To hear the concordant opinion of three people so vastly different most likely indicated that they were right about this particular issue.

  So Maker be damned if she listened.

  Not a matter of her customary character, to go in the directly opposite direction than she was guided; rather a matter of her not knowing how to give a shit about others’ advice. _Just like your mother_ , she thought, caustically echoing her father’s constant mantra. She wondered vaguely if her mother would keep alive a man who tried to murder her in cold blood because she wanted to get into the pants of a wide-eyed red-haired Chantry sister with an accent that made you tingle and a pair of tits that made you a believer.

  She settled back on her haunches, picking at a piece of grass growing through the desolate dirt near her toe. It was long and, at its stem, green, but the tip harbored a brown tinge that seemed to be crawling its ominous way down its leaf. It was brittle, and flaked at her touch. She closed her eyes and breathed through her nostrils. Her fingers traced the outline of the tattoo that swirled from above her eyebrow to the top of her cheekbone. "Stop the Blight, return home, cut off Vaughan’s dick.” A smile. "Feed him to the Archdemon.”

  After a long moment she stood, cracking her neck gamely. Standing, she unsheathed her blade, dented as it was, and leveled it at the unconscious assassin, whose chest, unfortunately, was still rising and falling with all the consistency of the sea. If only darkspawn would crash through the tent wall and start to eat the well-formed face off the Antivan. Everything would be so much easier.

  The Warden frowned and with a glare grabbed the elf's hair, brought his head back roughly, blade pressed against his neck. His eyes were still closed, looking more peaceful than like his life was in dire danger, should he not begin talking very quickly. In frustration she shook her fist a bit, his head jostling roughly in her grip. His eyelids began to flutter open, and he moaned provocatively. Her jaw clenched. She asked her first question.

  "Is what you said really true?"

  His eyes open now, he blinked in apparent surprise, eyebrows raising. It took him only a moment to orient himself, eyes flickering around the poorly-lit tent coolly. "Well," he said, voice somehow already lecherous, "how is it that you know this is one of my favorite ways to awaken?" He interrupted her own interruption with a wink. "Bound up and merely a breath away from an alluring temptress. Ah, with a blade, no less. You do know me well."

  She looked at him flatly, unimpressed with the performance. "Yeah? Does this scenario of yours include me slicing clean through your neck because you're not answering my question?"

  He paused to think for a moment, never once breaking their gaze. "Now that you mention it, no, it in fact does not. That _would_ be a very interesting twist indeed, however. Perhaps -"

 The sword edge pressed a thin white line across his neck. It was past its due to be whet, perhaps, but that made it no less of a threat. Her nostrils flared. "Perhaps you'll want to answer my question, Crow. I've had a long day and killing you would save me a lot of time."

  He tsked, a sound that grated her senses and irked her to the core. “This is no way to treat your guest, my dear Warden. I have answered all of your questions up to this point, no? Knocking me unconscious and then asking me if I was lying is hardly a worthwhile interrogation tactic.” A put-upon sigh. “And has given me a nasty headache too, I might add.”

  She would have been struck with awe, was she not also ready to kick his ass back to the goddamn sorry country that birthed this blonde-haired, silly-accented assassin into unfortunate existence. “I,” she enunciated slowly, “am going to slit your throat if you do not start talking.”

  The Crow’s mouth opened as if in offense, and his eyebrows knit together sensitively. “I am wounded that you might say such a thing. Here you seemed a very sensible woman to me.” He shrugged, tilting his head as if in estimation. “The interrogation style notwithstanding, perhaps, but-“

  The Warden grit her teeth in abject frustration, closing her eyes tightly. A deep inhale, a deep exhale. Nobody was getting decapitated. Not yet. She releveled her gaze. “Just answer my damn question.”

  He looked at her for a moment. Those weren’t trustworthy eyes, a depthless kind of amber color, fringed by dark long eyelashes, shaped wide and tapering. She didn’t like their gaze. Too canny. “As you say. Yes, I was telling the truth, which is that I am an Antivan Crow sent by a particular Teyrn Loghain to kill you, as a Grey Warden, and the other Grey Warden in your company, who, if I recall correctly, is far less captivating and skilled than yourself.”

  Her arm was beginning to grow sore from the weight of the broadsword, but she’d die before giving this Antivan the pleasure of appearing weakened after their fight today. Beneath her blood-stained tunic, Wynne had dressed her shoulder impeccably, giving a few hours before the flesh knit fully back together. “Stop trying to flatter me,” she said. “And tell my why he’d send one sad excuse of an assassin.”

 "Oh," he said in that tone that meant he was definitely not stopping, "but it is only flattery if it is not true -"

  Her brows were heavy over her eyes. "Stop."

 "Stubborn like a bull, this one," he said. "I do like that in a woman, but as you requested, I will indeed stop." The Crow, eyes roving up to where her wrist met his forehead, fist tight in his hair. He was going to make a sexually brazen comment about it. She could tell. She was about to fill the silence and prevent it when he smiled slightly, mouth quirking up just a little more on one side, and shook his head. "Imagine a contract to kill the last two Wardens in all of Fereldan. Not only physically difficult, but also politically dangerous, even for us Antivans. The grandmasters were eager to send assassins, but the assassins in question hardly reciprocated. I was the only one willing, so I traveled to this fine country, met with your Teyrn Loghain, formulated a trap, and now here I am, shaken conscious by the particularly striking mark I was sent to kill.” He blinked, coy. “Does that answer your question?"

  The Warden frowned deeply. He was too smooth, too quick to wake with a strange woman threatening to cut his throat and shrug. His answer made enough sense, but, well, he could well be making it up. She narrowed her eyes. "'Formulated a trap' is a bit of a stretch. You hired some farmhands with sticks and tried caning a group well-trained warriors to death." She laughed in disbelief, looking to the roof of the tent. "After yelling ‘Die, Warden’. We don't call that a trap here. We call that being royally stupid."

  He chuffed, still smiling. "Oh? Is that what you are, _well-trained warriors_? Forgive me if at the time I took you for a royal bastard, a giant, an apostate with the fashion sense of a blighted shrub, and a small angry elf with a sword as tall as she."

  How dare he insult her sword? It was of dwarven make, burnished steel, runes inscribed up the slightly serrated left edge, was beautifully balanced. A work of art! The way it sung as it soared through the air, how satisfying was that _thunk_ when it sunk heavily into its target.

  Arm beginning to burn, she urged the edge into the flesh of his neck and grit her teeth, face thrust only inches from his. "My sword," she growled, "is perfectly proportionate."

  The Crow smirked, and the Warden knew in her heart she had made a grave mistake. Stumbled right into his dastardly plans. "Oh, my dear, it is perfectly alright if you prefer swords of... greater length and girth." He winked. "Perhaps I could show you my own sometime."

  "If you show me your cock," she told him earnestly, "I will cut it off." She stared for a moment. "Now. I'd like to send you back to assassinate Loghain."

  "That seems a bit low for a member of the fabled Grey Wardens to stoop, does it not? To send an assassin to finish off her greatest enemy?"

  That didn't seem to stop him earlier, this romantic chivalry. "It would save me time and effort and the Blight would be stopped sooner. Will you do it?"

  "Do you have a large sum of gold?" he countered.

  "Once I shove my sword up the Archdemon's ass, yes."

  "You expect me to kill a man for, what? An IOU? A colorfully explicit promise? _Tsk._ "

  "I know you've killed for far less.”

  "I'm sorry, but that is itself a more tertiary question. Perhaps I should have lead with the fact that, should I make my presence known as an assassin in any major city within Thedas at the moment, I will instantly be killed by the Crows." He settled back slightly, not pleased with himself so much as matter-of-fact. No self-aggrandizing, no piteous wallowing.

  The Warden was still unimpressed, and scowled. "Really. Because to me, a good plan would be faking a shitty assault and killing the mark once she took my in out of pity."

  "Oh? Here I would have thought you kept me breathing for something more... carnal." A sigh. "Ah, well. Some dreams are just that: dreams."

  "Answer my question."

  "If you must know, by this time I should have sent your heads to Denerim. The fact that I haven't signals my failure to both Loghain and the Crows." He made as if to crack his neck. Her grip tightened.

  "You could be bullshitting me."

  A great sigh. "And here we are, back at the beginning. I did warn you, this is not a winning interrogation tactic. Perhaps you'd care to get a little physical next time. Torture, maybe?"

  "I was expecting some poorly-executed innuendo about sticking your sad little cock into me."

  "Only if it would work."

  "I would rather cut it off and send that to Loghain instead."

  “Perhaps you can carry out both castrations at once, to expedite the process, no?”

  She paused. "What?"

  He raised his eyebrows innocently. "I’m afraid I do not understand your question.”

  "You said _both castrations_.”

  "So I did." He looked at her evenly.

_Vaughan’s dick._

  She narrowed her eyes in accusation. "You acted like you were unconscious."

  "And you acted as though you bought it. I thought we were doing something of a bit."

  She stared in disbelief. "A bit?"

  "A little roleplay, in which you are the overburdened Warden and I am the bound assassin who might help you forget your problems, if just for a second."

  The Warden stared flatly, after a long moment pulling her sword away from his throat and sheathing it in the scabbard across her back. "You're not going to beg me to let you live?"

  "Well, you are clearly a woman who does as she pleases. Who am I to sway such a force of nature?" He sighed appreciatively, launching into a grandiose, pompous speech. “You seem the type of woman to sell her own soul if it meant that others would keep theirs. The type of woman who looks to the stars and sees her duty, not her destiny. The type-“

  “Shut up,” she said, only slightly venomous. Trying to decide whether to end him and his poisonous tongue.

  He was pleasing to look at, obviously. It was the first thing one noticed about him. Lithe muscles taut like a bow, smooth bronzed skin, wide lush lips. Even now, with his hair mussed and a painful outcropping of bruises lining the left side of his face, he was the prettiest thing she'd seen in a long time. And he knew it, too. He smirked that lopsided smirk.

  She wanted to fucking smack it off.

  Instead she gagged him and left.

 

* * *

 

  The breeze caressed the wall of her tent, a soft sibillant whisper that joined the woodsy evening cacophany of creaking tree branches and singing insects and howling beasts. The ceiling above was little more than a thin pale gauze and revealed beyond it a yawning black chasm of a sky, studded only occasionally with a dull star. At night cold always encroached, like an insidious disease, creeping into the tent and between cheap quilted blankets and into the bones. The fire was quenched at night, lest darkspawn or bandit alike attempt to creep in and murder Fereldan's apparent answer to a Blight: a few random strangers with disparate levels of combat training.

 Morrigan often spoke of the relaxing ways of the woods, the freedom and the wildness that was apparently comforting. She always pitched tent nearest to the forest, if possible, ignoring all warnings. The Warden admired that about her.

  She turned on her side, nothing but her hands to be placed beneath her head. After a long moment she poked her head outside her tent. "This is your fault," she accused.

  Dog looked at her blankly.

  "When you ate my pillow? You conveniently forgot about that?"

  He whined, pawing at her pathetically.

  "Yeah, well, I didn't. You're not coming inside."

  The dog laid on its side and blinked endearingly.

  "You think that's cute, huh. Shows how well you know me."

  She had to admit, it did make her feel a little guilty. Which was maybe his purpose all along.

  Fucking fleamonger.

  "I'm not some shem doglord," she whispered heatedly. "I'm not letting a mutt ruin my tent." And with that she withdrew, left once again with only her own company and the sounds of her sleeping companions around the small copse. Wynne was keeping watch, and in theory the Warden could go speak to her, but in reality that is very much not what she wanted to do. She was already tired, and did not want to be tired  _and_ homicidal. Listening to some wrinkled windbag eat prunes and wheeze on about honor and morals.

  She sighed wistfully. Leliana was different than Morrigan and Wynne. Her bedroll was always right in the midst of everybody else's, between Sten's and her own, close enough to the sizzling embers of a fire to see the dying glow. Sometimes The Warden could hear the soft singing that carried on the wind from the bard's tent to her own, and it was beautiful. In a different language or the common tongue, the words never made sense, but it had a haunting stillness that instilled a sense of impossible loneliness. She hated imagining Leliana to be lonely. Maybe she missed the bustle of the city, the wreath of familiar faces and the constant hum of voices passing by just outside the door.

  There was no singing tonight, though. Just the sounds of the wide open world and the deafening black sky looming overhead.

  The Blight crept along the land like a fog. It killed crops and brought hunger and death. Everybody wanted to talk about it. Always Blight this, Blight that. As if it got something done. Everybody whining endlessly, nobody wanting to leave their cozy farm and picturesque family to get something done.

  In flat despondence she grasped at her stolen flagon of ale, taking a preemptory swig in a tired stupor. She swallowed and placed the jug back in the grass, feeling profoundly empty despite the fiery sensation coursing down her throat. Customarily she might drink more, but a heaviness weighed her down, laying with her head against frozen ground, a single shiver coursing through her body. She might lie there forever, she felt, never receiving the energy to move, or laugh, or hold a sword. She might lie there while her companions died and the Alienage, her Alienage, was overtaken by the Blight, swallowed by rotting darkness. She might lie there forever.

  Alone.

  Silently she rose, peeling back the flap of her tent gingerly and motioning to the dog with her finger against her lips. All that was left of the fire now was a thin trail of smoke tracing upwards into oblivion, so she stepped carefully around the small pit they had established, guided largely by Alistair's snore, which was actually useful in warding off bandits, since it really convincincingly sounded like there was a bronto giving birth. She considered throwing a rock at the wall of his tent, but after a moment decided to save that particular prank for later.

  She stole into the assassin’s tent.

  His head was on his chest again, eyes closed, and she didn't care if he was pretending or not this time. She seized his head, her lips pressed against his with indiscriminate zeal, warmth spreading from the center of her body, a deep-seated, hopeless hunger. The Crow stirred after a moment, pulling his head back and blinking at her in bleary consternation. His eyes were hooded, sleepy, but that self-same canny gleam still looked back at her, and for a moment she was repulsed. This elf had tried to kill her. ”Someone was rather quick to change their mind," he mused after a long moment, voice rough from sleep. "Here I supposed -"

  "I'm not untying you," the Warden said, still standing, face only inches from the other elf's, his dark, smooth skin, full, ruddy lips, the rhythmic smell of sweat and leather. She wanted to run her thumb over those long tattooed whorls by his right temple. "Do you want this or no, Crow."

  "I might ask you the same," he countered, head tilted, gaze studiedly impassive. "You smell of ale, Warden."

  She bent slightly, hand caressing the bulging outline between his splayed legs, biting her lip at its agile response. Maker, had it been too long since she felt an elven cock. She missed elven cocks. ”I’m not drinking tonight.” Her legs settled over his lap decisively, sliding so that her arms might hook snugly behind his head. Her tits, unbound, poorly concealed in her long shirt, were pushed harshly against the firm muscle of his chest. She grabbed his half-hard cock firmly, massaging it intently with her thumb. “I’m going to fuck you instead. If you want it. If you shut up.”

  His breath was hot against her neck. “Oh? So I am but a tool to be used by a beautiful, salacious woman, then. What a sad fate.”

  Like she knew what salacious meant. Like she cared. She leaned back, face dark. Wanted to roll her eyes. “Yes. You are. Unless you keep going on about it.”

  The assassin quirked his head then, expression immutable, gaze adopting a dewy sheen,  glinting the pale moon. The amber that today was so wily now was dark, deep, his lips so close to hers, those ears slender, dark against ruffled, thick hair. Blinking genuinely. “I wouldn’t think of it,” he said, accent thick, voice low in a way that made sent a shiver down her spine, and closed his lips against hers. Soft, for the first few moments, then harder, the sharp feeling of teeth pulling at her lower lip. She moved her hips with his, his member growing stiff against her. He had an insistent mouth, curious, that tasted like stale beer and ash and candies, not desperate but hard. Hard, a pleasured hum coming from deep within his chest. In response the Warden tightened her fingers in his hair and pulled his head back from hers. She watched him down the length of her nose, smiling slightly. In return he smirked warily, lips parted, eyes dewy. A few hours prior he’d looked at her, teeth bared, eyes dark, daggers whirling like twin hawks. He feinted down low and leaped forward. Sword darting outward snake-like. She fell back and swung at his head, but there was a duck, spin. Flanking. Bringing the greatsword to cleave him in twain, arcing at the last moment to catch him in his escape. Timed wrong. Still a gash opened along his flank, long, spurting dully.

  A few hours prior they’d nearly killed each other.

  The Crow said something, but she ignored him. The thought of their fight earlier that day played in her mind and, incredibly wet, she had turned her singleminded attention to the buttons of his breeches, just enough rapidly undone for that Maker-sent elven dick to spring free.

  Admiring it – to be fair, he really hadn’t been lying in all his grandiose brags – she reached down, playing with herself, their hips moving in unison. In the back of her mind was the vague concern that the chair might break in half. His lips had found their way to her neck, and she ran her hands across his shoulders as he entered her.

  For all she cared, the Crow might as well have been some well-shaped cucumber mounted on a wall. Perhaps a little warmer and stickier, but she cared equally little for their enjoyment of this. That was their job, the cucumber and the Crow, looking after themselves.

  After a while, feeling satisfied, she climbed off, brushing her hair away from her face and stretching her arms above her, happy, businesslike. She did feel quite a bit better. And no hangover in the morning, either. _And_ she didn’t even feel dirty for fucking some Antivan that tried to kill her and her friends. Running her hands over her hair again, the Warden allowed herself a smile. Only when she turned back to the Crow did it become a laugh.

  He was panting lightly, and made a bit of a hilarious scene, pants halfway down his ass and dick saluting her departure, full-mast in the air. “You,” he said, in an accusatorial tone, “are a cruel woman, Warden.”

  She straightened her shirt to cover her tits once again, eyeing him. No reason to kill the assassin yet. Not where they were going. She considered asking his name again, but didn’t care all that much. Wouldn’t matter in the long run.

  The Warden thought about Leliana’s winsome face the first time she hadn’t killed the assassin.

  “We’re leaving for Orzammar tomorrow,” she said, and left.

 

_iv._

  Wooden panels creaked overhead. The barmaid slumbered gently beside her, occasionally mumbling a snatch of song, something the minstrel had been strumming downstairs. Something soft and slow.

  Hadn't been great for the sex, honestly.

  Air moved lazily through the room, a chilled breeze. The Warden crossed sleeplessly to the window.

  Stars stretched languidly overhead, countless. She understood why the dwarves feared it. So large, limitless. Nothing you could do to hurt or kill it. All day it watched those beneath scuttle around and then it went dark to make all those distant figures run to their beds. She wished she could kill it, like some figure out of myth. She'd heard a story of some elven hero, millenia before, who lassoed the sky with a rope and pulled it down to earth. Who knew how it ended. She'd never liked those old stories, with their windy morals and their unlikely endings. Real life didn’t have destiny.

  Only duty.

  She was very still for a moment, gaze locked on the outline of the sky, then she swore vehemently to herself.

_After all this time, he’s still fucking me over._

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered, and left for Skyhold.


End file.
